Ch. 1: Roads that were made by no mortal being's hand
Brooke spun slowly, endlessly, most deliciously head over heels, like doing a backflip and never having to come down and land. She noticed vaguely that the emptiness she tumbled through seemed to change, from greeny-blue to night-blue, then to a wonderful murky brown like pond water. A deep murmering was sounding all around her, rising and wavering like a distant downpour, or a muffled waterfall, or the half-understood chanting of a hundred mighty voices in a tongue she did not know. She like to hear it. There was a shadow lurking somewhere in her mind, a darkness she wanted to put as far away as possible, but with the mysterious singing that was hardly an effort Words grew in the chanting, growing ever more familiar, until she could make them out. Arheledenvendonwendo '' ''Hear the sing of song unsending '' ''Whirling, swirling, drifting nigh '' ''Unto roadland far on high '' ''Silver woven unsupporting '' ''Chasm floating airland winding '' ''Follow, follow, drifting maiden '' ''Odnewnodnevnedelehra. '' With an abrupt jolt she stopped. A silver web of curling lines lay below her, one thread of which advanced toward her, widening as it did, until it ended abruptly at her feet. Hesitantly Brooke stepped out onto the swaying road. Her foot felt nothing, but she did not fall. It was difficult to see what the way was made of. It seemed to glimmer and waver like moonlight upon water, an unlevel surface of incredible age: whatever substance or spell it was wrought of, it had clearly endured far beyond its’ time. It had the texture of ancient rock half-dissolved by acid raindrops, and the glow within it wavered and flickered, hence the wavering effect she had first perceived. It was edged with what had been a lattice of some translucent material, but much of it had crumbled or fallen, and queer tattered gaps yawned in the intricate patterns. '' Seeking, seeking, I am seeking, always seeking, without recking. Questing, questing, my eyes passing, never resting. Looking, looking, ever looking, I cannot see what is before me, my eyes passing, ever seeking something that lieth beyond. Tree and beam of wood and home, my eyes see them and forget them, pinched and ancient ever peering, see and know them and pass on in everquest of endless rest and something they will never find, for it’s not here. It is not and is no longer here. '' She listened as she walked along the strange mysterious road, listened dreamily to the ancient muttering of that weird voice, now all around her, now just ahead, around some curve or crook of road. The luminous something that enfolded the road was pale now like deep soft fog just before the sunrise, pink and grey and pearl-white. In the brackets of the patterns of the lattice jewels began to gleam, but whenever she reached for one it would blink out like a soap-bubble and leave only a dark hole. They were iridescent as bubbles, too, these transient gems, until it seemed like a gallery of colored eyes blinked and winked at her in every hue from all around. ''Where, we wonder, where in thunder lieth that which we do seek? Once we knew it, once we had it, gazed upon it and could see it, eyes unpassing, passless resting in compass of what was there. But we have lost it, long since lost it, before the fathers of our fathers ever woke in twiless night. '' The road was no longer running out on emptiness. The rosy softness all around was shadowed now by mighty shapes concealed beneath but faintly, like a woman’s limbs under a skirt of gauze. Slowly the shapes filed by on either side, sad and shiftless as the mountains; but whether Brooke was the one moving, or whether the highway moved with her, she could not tell and did not know. Far among the cloudy rocks the hidden voice went on lamenting. '' We have lost it, we have lost it, we never beheld what we seek but still remember, heart and nature, our eyes bear us onward ever questing, all things ttesting, weighing them to maybe see if by some chance we have at last come out of shadow into that whose memory is in our eyes. '' And the sorrow of that seeking voice and the pathos it awoke in her made Brooke shed tears that gleamed like crystals as they drifted in the air. '' She too wanders, maiden wonder, hearkens dripping to my keening as she passes ever passing. Has she seen it, has she found it, does her eye now rest untested? No, she is still a stream of Eve, she is seeking ever seeking as am I, as are we all, we mortal race of weeping nature, we must seek on ever seeking that our seeking may not rest persure in what was not meant to stop our eyes. '' The nameless way shifted once again, and Brooke saw that it was actually a river, or laid above a river, or sharepresent with a river, a broad brown river splashing steadily over its’ hidden stones. A bridge of mist, squared and unlovely as the works of Man are wont to be, crossed the river, and shadowy buildings of white with smudges of red beside their windows rose up above the stream. The road was the only solid thing in all that mist, wavering white light flickering through its’ wan worn substance, the ghostly river chattering and bubbling in and among it somehow. She wanted to bend, to stoop and touch that strange unreal water and see how it would feel splashed upon her face, but she was drifting on along the road and would not stop. She was, quite suddenly, no longer walking along a ghostly river, but under a forest of giant oaks that stood so close on either hand no space was left. Branches wove a knotted net above her. Underfoot the road was wood as well, interwoven roots so ancient they, like the boles of the trees, had fused together and grown into a single piece. She moved her legs as though she were walking, but she felt no impact, she made no sound. She might as well have hovered in the air. The fused trees opened, spreading branches; but they were stone, and their twigs were stone, and they bore no leaf save the green moss that hung on them. And stone as they were they were so beautiful she felt her heart ache: what must they have been when still alive, if dead they were still this majestic, this graceful. “What made them stone?” she said aloud. '' “Time made them stone, even as time made them grow.” '' The voice came, deep and ancient as the earth, from the flowing ragged lines in the bark of a tree smaller than the others, and it bore living leaves as well as moss, growing out of the middle of the road not far ahead, so that its’ great twisted roots coiled like a heap of ropes upon the emerging stone. And that tree was moving. In her dreamlike state this did not cause the utter panic it would under normal circumstances, only a suspended sort of wariness. The slumped branches shifted and folds in bole and bark expanded, as of a man slowly pulling himself erect. In one spot on the trunk the lines merged and flowed until a lined, tired face was formed. Eyes of yellow light opened in deep hollows, hooded, pinched, questing eyes. “No, it is not her I’m seeking, not her pretty face I’m hunting, though I glance from face to forest, always hoping for reflecting of the place that I am seeking.” The Tree blinked at her again, the pinched wistfulness in the sad eyes finally moving her to speak. “Who are you?” she exclaimed. “It is a strange thing of him, that when he meets a being in a land he does not know, his first speech is to inquire the whoness of the other,” the Tree answered. It seemed to be speaking to her, but the way the eyes focused, and the distant, constant ache of looking that shone in them, made her wonder if he might not just as well be talking to himself. “When it is himself he should question the whoness concerning, and where.” “I’m not a he.” “Yes, you are—and again, aren’t.” said Tree. “Female in body and feminine of soul, but was not woman taken out of man?” Just in time Brooke remembered Ronnie’s comment of the general tense of '' man, and bit off her first remark. “So, I should just go around saying, Hi, I’m a human and my name is Brooke?” she said instead. “To be able to ask another of his whoness, his esnoní, you must be certain of your own. As to what, however, that is more natural, particularly if the being is alien. Have you who?” Brooke hesitated, eyeing the face in the tree. They were moving now, and had been for some time. Slowly the trees of stone gave way to trees that still put out small withered leaves, yet looked so old and dead they seemed also to be of stone. Then the leaves became greener and more dense, and the road opened, another road going off to the left, a broad circular stone glade making the waymeet. The glade was roofed by boughs and boles so mossy they were as green as their leaves. The forest of leaning crouched trees was a dim ancient green, and mist lay like haze in the sunless air beneath the old limbs. Some of the moss was so ancient it was peeling off like bark. The pavement, if it had been one and not merely laid out upon the bone of the rock beneath, was worn and pitted, a greyish pink; and no moss grew on it. No vine or root or growth reached farther than the edge of that aged surface, but the borders were jaggedly with crawling fingers of dead roots. They came to a pause as Brooke faced the Tree. “I know who I am.” she said to it. “I am Brooke.” “But are you certain of who?” it pressed. “So many there are whose names are not their who…and they pass on through their time and even with their weight of years they unknow who they are.” “I know.” she stated. The tree’s bole seemed in places as supple as leather, and these places contracted and stretched, so that the face nodded in its’ frame. “You are your name.” the Tree said. “You know Who. But Who am I….ah, that is something that even now I do not know, at least in full; and how can I tell you who I am, if it is buried in me?” “But what are you?” The ancient eyes fastened onto hers. “Human.” he responded. “Could you not see it in my eyes? By the seeking in our eyes are all humans known, no matter of the shape or form that their bodies be laid underneath. We look, and see, behold a beautiful; but we stare, and then absorb, and then our eyes shift, looking beyond, for what they cannot find nor remember.” They were moving again now, up the left-hand way, she gliding forward unwalking as if she was a ghost, the tree beside her in a motion smooth as flowing water. The road flowed beneath: a stone road, wrought into the granite, deep rounded furrows etched and worn into the bumpy surface as by a thousand years of water. And it was blue as water, deep and banded with color. Overhead the ancient trees passed, and seemed to grow more ancient with every foot they travelled. “But why?” she said. “Why, and why, and why…ah maiden, if we could solve that, or even had the hope of solving that, would we have forged such a word, a word of question unanswered, a word of potential and no actual? Why were Men made? Why were Men cursed? What did ye do, ye Men, in the ages ere the Sun? Aye, what indeed. You know, Brooke. You know what we did.” Brooke was pensive and said nothing. Around them the trees were now so ancient they had all become stone, and still the dark green shade and misty shadow robed the forest, as if here there was no sun. “Then where are we?” she said, after some while had passed beneath them in silence. “Where?” the Tree chuckled. “Riverton, I think they call it. Yes, Riverton it is. The village that watches the northeast, as Colebrook watches the northwest, one side and another of the Gates of the North.” “Riverton?” Brooke exclaimed, looking around at the forest of stone. The trees had broken boughs now, stone though they were, as though the change had been so long ago not even they could remain whole. “But…I never saw this here.” she finished lamely. “No, that you haven’t. And yet you walked on the Pombothowd, did you not?” the Tree replied. “Riverton, yes…and also no.” “Then where are we?” Tree looked, suddenly, very old, and weary beyond years. “There are roads whose building was unmingled by the touch of mortal, walking these hills where none can now perceive them. Man used to see them, sometimes; and wander onto them; see them like a flicker in the sky or a mirage in the land. But the old sight is gone, and the roads walk untended, let alone mended, between here and here, so that those upon them are both here and—not here.” “But I don’t understand.” said Brooke, coming to a confused stop. “How can we be here and not here?” Tree flowed on up the eroded stone road. Brooke saw for the first time that he was moving on his roots, which slithered smoothly underneath him like a nest of tentacles, bearing him forward in an unbroken smooth glide. She ran to catch up. At least, she moved arms and legs as if she was, and her motion increased correspondingly, but she still felt no jar of foot on surface, even when she looked down at her feet and saw them meeting the ground. “There are many heres, Riverbrooke.” answered the Tree. “They stack like layers upon the same space and yet are not co-interclusive…''sentíessa,'' share-exist, is more accuracte, but difficult to render in our blunt short tongue: the sharing of spatiation, to occupy a place without excluding other occupiers…but each here is solid when you stand in it, and the heres stacked upon it are as ghosts, or as nothing.” “Dimensions?” Brooke guessed, beginning to get a faint idea of what he was trying to say. “Are you talking about parallel realities? Other worlds?” “There is only one reality, girl.” the Tree answered. A crystal bead budded on a branch that looked like it was made of glass, and dropped. The tinkling sound it shattering on stone startled Brooke. She looked around and saw the forest of stone was now a forest of webbed crystal, trunk and twig as clear as glass. A crystal dew flashed from every branch, yet whenever a drop became too heavy and fell it shattered like a bubble of glass. “It wouldn’t be multiple if it was only one.” “There can be many units in one thing.” answered the Tree. “Reality is one; but it has many planes, and each dimension of the Seven has many kinds of divisions.” “So, not like the comics where duplicate worlds have different times and events?” “I am not sure of these ‘comics’; I have seen the pictured stories that they print in newspapers and pamphlets, and if you mean them, well, there are no other realities. There are only other worlds, and other places, and in these places other heres.” “How come we can’t see them?” “We could, once.” he said. “Once, we all could have. But we lost it long ago. For a time it lingered in us in flickers and gleams, but it is gone, only a faint shadow and memory of it left in Men; and if any do chance to have in them a gleam of it, as often as not it is witches they become, and then when they do step hereon they only make it worse. For Man was meant to tread upon the lowest floor alone, and those who walk above their own may find them lost forever.” “If reality is one, then why the layers? I don’t quite get it.” Tree bent his upper branches so as not to shatter a stooping hemlock, its’ dead and needleless twigs a fine net all turned to clear glass. “You cannot see the angels in their own thoughtly flesh, nor can you trace the quantam as it shortcuts across space. Yet they are real. Think of nine stacked papers, one upon another. Now imagine these papers all occupying the same space, each like mist to the others. When you stand on one sheet, you are here. Now if you shifted your space, yourself unmoving but becoming solid in a higher layer, you would be in another here.” The road was climbing now, growing steeper and more smooth yet still pocked with erosion. “These roads walk among the heres and join one here to another, or at least so they intended. They always wanted to know, they did. From here to here they knit the roads together, weaving their beds into the bedrocks, until they reached the last here of all.” He glided on in such sudden silence Brooke found herself compelled to ask, “And then what did they find?” “They found that they stood upon the rooftops of Time, and that they could walk into the Present at any place along it they wished, and peer down into the past as do the angels. But when they tried to walk into the future, Time saw them, and he was angry, and he sealed them into their own roads, trapped until the day when all heres are consumed in the ending of time.” “But who were they?” “You do not know?” Tree said in some surprise. “You do not know who wove the roads, or who was it who could not come under the darkness of the trees? And yet you are a son of Arheled.” “I’m a girl.” The Tree sighed. “Many of Arheled’s sons have been. He does not beget by copulation, nor does he sire the flesh. His sons are of his heart-breath, whether man or maid or venda.” “Sorry.” she said. “Where I come from a ‘son’ is usually male.” “Except for a per-son.” “Well, that’s—that’s—different. Person means an individual entity. Son means male.” “And yet the Son of God can hardly be called ‘male’.” “He’s male now.” The Tree came to a stop. “He has a male Body, yes. But that Body is not His Substance, but united to Him, so that the nature is part of His Person. But He was not sired as humans are. He was—is—eternally begotten of the Father. Male is of the flesh. Yet both masculine and feminine come out of God. Despite this we still speak of the Son of the Father.” “You’re making my head spin.” “Then perhaps your head was not fastened on overfirm.” he retorted. “The problem is now which way to go.” They stood at another meeting of roads. The stone road forked at a Y, broadening into a glade floored with stone and walled with stone trees. The delicate crystal dew was left below, in some other here perhaps, and the fossil twigs were bare and furry with litchened moss. Clouds processed with ponderous majesty before them, as if the stone road abruptly ended at a cliff; yet both roads ran on level, like bridges, the clouds pouring around them. “Where are we going, anyway?” asked Brooke. “You have to be returned.” the Tree answered. “But you cannot merely walk out and wake up in your body. There are no doors out—that I know of, that can be lawfully used; the witches come, but their door is tainted with poison of magic, and you cannot pass such and live. In any case I know not where it stands. And every passing in black magic poisons the roads and makes them worse, like using a door that is nearing collapse.” Brooke felt a cold wind wash through her. “Then I can’t get out.” “Not on your own.” Tree agreed. “Nor on mine. So, we have a problem. The only ones who can solve it—are entombed. But there is one whom we can ask. We must speak to the Green Man.” “Whatever the heck a green man has to do with anything.” Tree turned from one fork of the road to another. “He is not easy to find,” he said. “And the roads are so old…so grown with age and time and magic-roded that whether they still lead where they did is a question. Thrice has the Road returned since I last walked them all.” Abruptly he turned, moving down the left-hand way. “We are nearing the border of the roads,” he said, “and if I am not mistaken, the right would reach the edge. This may also, if the old ways are damaged.” Brooke didn’t like the sound of that, but she followed Tree on into the endless clouds. She felt somehow as if they were crossing between two chasms, an endless drop to either hand, but the clouds made it impossible to see. But when they had walked for a little over half a mile, suddenly the last clouds sailed by and great rifts and pine gorges opened out on either hand and below, sharp sheer hills rising to toppling crests only to drop just as abruptly beyond. The road spanned these abysses on fantastic arches of ancient white stone, the masonry so delicate and fine it seemed fused; as perhaps it was. A rail of dwarf trees espaliered elaborately into a graceful grid-cloverleaf pattern fenced in both sides, a net of dense twigs like a balustrade on top growing so close and fine as to seem solid. It was only when she looked closely that Brooke realised they were litchen, and there was no bark on the bare bleached wood of the dead trees. The ground rose clifflike to meet them, and then they were passing down a dark cutting in a high knife of pine ridge, crowded with pines and hemlocks. “I don’t remember the area around Riverton being like this.” she said. “That is because we are several layers removed from the here in which you belong.” Tree answered. “When you walked upon the Pombothowd, you were in the here overlaying immediately your rightful here. But we are higher now.” “Are there a lot of heres?” Tree shrugged. “I have overhead strange discussions about multilayered universes, but it is not so with the heres. Some of them have mystical purposes, as the Lands of the Seasons or the Storehouses of the Snow where the clouds are solid, or the Prison of Mother Nature; but others seem, like this, empty and purposeless. But they are never empty, and they are most decidedly not safe. Look on me.” “How did '' you become a Tree, anyway?” Tree leaned over the rooted railing and gazed pensively at the gorge below. The cutting lay like a black notch behind them. “I strayed onto the wrong places, and as I walked the roads I found that instead of growing older I began to grow sleepier. I no longer needed to eat. I took to standing for days, even weeks, in a stupor. My feet grew out roots, and twigs came from my shoulders, and I found I was a Tree; but a Tree that could walk. Then Arheled came to me, and led me back to the roads, to walk them until my curse is fulfilled.” “So you’re trapped here.” “Many are.” the Tree said as they pressed on, gazing down into the gulf. Swift falling slopes of pine shot away at the wildest angles, the thin curving bridge of the impossible road like a taunt thread. Brooke wondered where the border between heres had been. “But you are not.” “I’m here, ain’t I? and I don’t know the way out.” Tree gave her a slow, dry look. “Not all of you is here. I can see shapes through you. Your feet do not smite the ground. Nor can you smell.” “What do you mean?!” Brooke began indignantly, before it dawned on her like a thunderclap that she hadn’t smelled anything since she came. “Am I a…ghost?” “You live,” replied Tree. “Ghosts are dead. You are more a phantom, or a wraith, properly speaking. The witches talk of projecting themselves astrally, but I hate them and suspect whatever they say. That is why you must return.” The road, till now straight or gently curving, now began to loop and snake dizzingly among the towering hills; here hugging a steep slope, then shooting off to curve around a crag of stone, and then winding about among the tops of small hills, mist-shrouded canyons sundering them. Left behind was the railing of dead trees. The road now was fenced by a trellis of some strange white metal, with a soft luster. “These are the roads which the Sign of Street Hill signified, aren’t they? I thought some of those lines followed actual streets.” “Some do,” replied the Tree. “The ones that run just above your proper here, follow roads that exist in it, or land features such as rivers. For the roadmakers felt the presence of these Roads, and made their own curve to follow them when they happened to cross; and the rivers ate down these valleys through the soft rock of old, before the Ice finished flattening their courses, and were here when the Roadbuilders laid down these Roads. Then there are roads in the middle heres, which follow for anchoring purposes land features in your here; and the farther roads, along the highest heres, follow none of your maps at all.” “Are any of them—the Road?” The Tree actually made a gesture of reverence. “No.” he answered. “The Road is of all heres and none. For it weaves together the surface of the World, and it walks through the very foundation and fabric of reality itself. To find it we would need to transcend the heres altogether.” The road stopped. Brooke thought at first it was only a sudden turn at a cliff’s edge, or the crest of a downslope, maybe. The broken shard of upland they were crossing, full of red and grey litchens and strange mountain plants, simply ended ahead of them, etched pale against the wild mountains. Then she was standing at a brink, where the road should have continued on, but instead simply ceased. The weathered cliff showed that this break was far from recent. “No.” the Tree murmered. “No! It cannot be! This is the only way down!” “Where’s it gone?” Brooke said, hearing her voice funny and small in the great mountain-silence. Tree peered over the edge, testing air and brink with his roots and twigs. “It has fallen.” He sounded dazed. “It’s fallen between one here and another. I never thought the decay so bad in these parts. We must go back.” “Where were we going?” Tree focused on her again. His eyes suddenly looked exhausted, haunted. “The Green Man answers to his carvings.” he replied. “The Five Churches hold some. But the way to Winsted is cut off from us.” “If the Roads are this decrepit, how will we know if we won’t run into another one?” She saw a pale streak amid the pines on a farther slope, and a slender thread springing over a chasm. “There’s another! Right over there! Couldn’t we just, I don’t know, go cross-country?” “That road is in another here.” he said tiredly. “We could climb down forever and never reach the farther side. No. Only on the road is there a way through. Once you step off them, you could wander among heres until time itself ended and not find them again. There is no help for it. We must go back.” Ronnie Wendy felt the calm of the lovely summer slowly pull him away from care and turmoil, as June passed into July. The cup-like, secret flowers of the laurels were turning brown. It was warm, sometimes muggy, with delicious cool nights. Ronnie hunted cans and did odd jobs now and then, and sometimes for the heck of it baked a pie in a dutch oven on a campfire. Brooke was in the hospital now. They had found her case extremely puzzling: her comatose condition seemed to have no medical causes at all, but brain activity was nil, she barely breathed, her heartbeat was erratic, and she showed no response to stimuli. All of them made sure to stop in at least once every other day. Forest and Bell would bike up from the lake, or Lara would visit on the way home from work, or Travel would come by with Ronnie. Brooke’s parents were often there, looking not so much grieved as bewildered. One time Ronnie came alone. He gathered a couple budding daylilies from the roadside and took them to Brooke’s room, where Mrs. Pond had put a vase. Brooke seemed unchanged. It wasn’t till he put the flowers in the vase that Ronnie saw the man sitting beside her. Youngish, with a “wife-beater” tanktop and protruding puffy lips, he had the half-absent look of one who frequently indulges. “Sorry, didn’t see you.” said Ronnie. “Hello, Brooke. How are you doing?” “She can’t hear you, dude.” the man said. There was something faintly sinister in the way he said this. Ronnie gave him a sharp glance. “She might, though.” “Bringing flowers, how sweet. Think maybe she’ll go out with you when she wakes up? Might as well date a corpse, bro.” “Why are '' you here, then?” Ronnie retorted. “Might as well sit by a corpse.” The young man shrugged. “I have every right to be here.” he said. “I’m her brother, Ben. And who are you?” Ronnie bent on him the full power of his burning eyes. “One who has far more respect for her than you, '' brother. '' I am the Hill of the Road.” The young man tried to meet Ronnie’s eyes with his own dull, washed-out ones, but they blinked and fell beneath that piercing stare. “Well, I gotta go, anyway.” he said, getting up. For a moment there was an evil look in his eyes, as though he contemplated an assault across the bed, but he thought better of it and shambled out. Forest came in as he left, and stopped in his tracks, staring after Ben. “Who is that?” he said. “Her brother, seemingly.” said Ronnie, frowning. “Oh, he’s her brother, all right,” Forest answered, “but..” He’s an enemy. Something feels wrong in him. '' Ronnie turned to Brooke. He placed his hand on her head. “Where is she now, Forest, can you see?” he said quietly. “She’s on a road.” said Forest blankly. “Just sort of gliding…There’s a cliff ahead of her. She’s talking to a tree.” “A cliff.” said Ronnie. “Look harder. Does the road have any landmarks?” “It…stops.” Forest marveled. “As if it broke. They see it now. They look lost.” “The map!” Ronnie exclaimed. “Of course! The map from Street Hill. It’s not a map of our area. It’s a map of these roads, which must overlay ours on some odd dimensional level. She needs that map!” “But…” ''How are you going to get it to her, Forest wanted to say. “Where is she? What direction?” Ronnie asked. His voice was terse, flat, his brows knotted as he concentrated on the problem. Tentatively Forest raised his hand and pointed out the window. The hospital, an old building of yellow brick like the college, stood on a shelf just under the steep rocky height of Cobble Hill; they were in the rectangular new wing beside it. Ronnie strode to the window and peered, now at the hospital, now at the Cobble above to the left, now at the sun. “How far?” “About…two, maybe three miles.” “Robertsville. Which way is she headed?” Forest’s arm slowly swung around to the right, pointing north-east. “Riverton.” muttered Ronnie. He bent down to Brooke’s ear. “''Riverbrooke, Streamgirl, if you can hear me, listen. We will meet you in Riverton''.” “But that’s kind of far.” objected Forest as they headed down the hospital hallways. “I drove for once.” said Ronnie. “Throw your bike in my truck. I gotta drive home for that sketch, and then to Riverton. I hope she doesn’t move too quickly.” Brooke walked at a trot beside the Tree, who had picked up his speed. She felt no weariness, nothing to tell her she had walked several miles; but if Tree was right and she was in some sort of out-of-body condition, then she wouldn’t need to worry about sore legs. “How long have I been here?” she said. Tree peered about, squinting. There was, as usual, no sun, only the odd overcast brightness. He seemed not to have heard her. “The Sun and Moon do not travel among the heres, but light flows from here to here freely, as long as it is fluid. But the old light is dried up long ago in the lowest of heres, and the Daslenga no longer rages through the heres as he was wont. And so we walk in twilight, or twibright, and each year the heres grow dimmer.” “What happens when they grow completely dark?” Brooke said as they passed out of the crystal forest. “Then we have Night.” Tree answered grimly. They walked through the stone forest in silence, each busy with his thoughts. Brooke felt the boundary between heres this time; it felt like hitting a speed bump. Tree looked around with perking interest as the trees became alive once more and they entered the waymeet. Suddenly she stumbled and almost fell. “What is it?’ said Tree. “I thought—I felt watched.” she told him. “As if someone was talking in my ear or something.” “I see and feel no one.” said Tree, testing the air. “How long have I been in here?” she repeated. Tree wrinkled his forehead. “Time is not easy to judge in the higher layers,” he said slowly, “for its’ focus is upon the lowest here and that is where the weaving lies. But without sun or stars the only judge of duration is one’s own sense of passing, and that is a most disreliant clock. I lost my watch centuries ago. But I doubt we have walked in company longer than twelve hours.” “And who knows how many days I was drifting between heres.” Brooke muttered. They passed into the forest of stone, and the tunnel of wood, and then with a bump Brooke saw the ghostly Riverton appear around her, the shadow-water flowing through the solid stone. Behind her, when she turned, was the outline of a phantom bridge over the Farmington River, a good twenty feet above the water. Two figures were standing on the bridge. She could hear an echo of their voices, familiar voices… “Look harder, Forest.” the taller one was saying. “Are you sure you don’t see it?” '' Forest? '' The smaller figure turned, and Brooke felt a wild stab of emotion. His eyes were solid, dark and hard as stone in that phantom village; they were eyes that dwelt on many levels at once. And they could see her. “Ronnie!” Forest’s voice came like a sharper echo. “She’s there! She’s standing on the river!” '' Ronnie?! '' “Ronnie!” she screamed, racing forwards. “Stop!” Tree’s voice barked like thunder. “The road does not reach to the bridge. It leaves this here before it gets that far. Advance, and you may lose them.” He glided up beside her, bark brows puckered, curious. “Who are they? How can they see you?” Brooke, a full twenty feet short of the bridge, stared up at Ronnie. He was glancing around, here, there; he didn’t see her. Forest pointed. “Brooke!” Ronnie’s voice was dim as if he shouted into water. “I cannot see you, but maybe I can hear you. Look at what I hold. Can you see it?” “No, I can’t!” she screamed. He heard her. His eyes grew fierce and focused, as she had seen them when he was pursuing mysteries on a map. A sudden flicker of scarlet flamed in their depths. And then sounds broke in upon her, the wild chatter of flowing water, the sound of birds, a car driving by. Ronnie, and Forest, and the river in front of her, and the bridge, were suddenly solid and real. “You revealed the road.” she exclaimed. “Brooke! I am so glad to see you. You have us worried sick. You’ve been comatose in that hospital for over a week. Can you come out?” “No,” the voice of Tree answered, “If she walks forward she will only go up; the ways down are shut. You are reaching up, son of the Road, but your hold is too feeble for ought to pass but sound and light.” Ronnie scrambled down the side of the bridge and plowed into the water. The river was not very deep, but he was nearly up to his chest by the time he reached Brooke. Holding the paper free of the water, he held it out to Brooke. “Do you see that?” “I don’t have anything to write with.” she said wretchedly. Tree snapped one bough with a report like thunder. His trunk bulged and flexed until a huge slab of bark popped off. With a shock of horror Brooke saw beads of blood forming on the broken branch and bare patch instead of sap. “Take my branch.” he instructed. “Trace the map in blood on that bark.” Shaking, Brooke did so. The blood was thick and stained like red ink. Carefully upon the concave white inner surface of the bark she traced each curve, each line, until Ronnie was satisfied. “I’m sorry, Ronnie.” she said tearfully. “I wish I could come back. I’ll get out as fast as I can. Tell my parents not to worry. Tree will look after me.” “And who is Tree?” Ronnie said, looking up. “One who can protect her.” the deep earthen voice of Tree answered. Ronnie stared sharply at him. “You’re human.” he said wonderingly. “I see your human face, flickering inside the bark. Who are you?” “One who is trapped.” the Tree answered. “One whose being is here wholly, not half as hers is.” Ronnie nodded. His eyes, still flickering red, held Brooke’s. “We will pray for your safe journey.” he said. Suddenly Ronnie and the world outside snapped back to ghosts. Ronnie stood in the water, looking blankly into nothing. Then he turned and floundered his way out. “Bye, Ronnie.” whispered Brooke. When Ronnie and Forest had walked off the bridge and were swallowed in the ghostly village, Tree touched her shoulder. She turned and saw he was holding the map for her to see. “There are many breaks.” he said. “It looks like three entirely separate regions.” Tree tapped one area, the one marked “R” for Riverton. “The way into Winsted is safe.” he said. “There are no breaks along this…Root Eight…oh, that must be a highway now, eh? It climbs, the road does, back and forth, higher, lower…the broken road was faster and straighter, aye well. Still, we can at least reach the Five Churches, that is something.” “It was sunny out there.” said Brooke tightly. “I saw the trees waving. It looked warm. It’s summer out there.” “Indeed we must return you soon.” the Tree muttered. “I knew him.” Ronnie insisted. “I mean, not recognized, but I knew him. Something about him was familiar. Something from one of our pasts.” “Did he look like one of us, you mean?” Travel asked. Ronnie had called everyone on the phone and asked them to meet at the park, urgently. They had all come. Bell and Lara looked troubled. Forest said all of a sudden, “He looked like Travel.” Ronnie bent his powerful eyes on her. Travel felt prickly under that concentrated gaze. “Do you have any family pictures?” he said abruptly. “My grandma would. She knows almost everything.” “Can you arrange for me to visit?” “She’s always home.” said Travel. “I could call and see if she wants company over.” “Ronmond Wendtho.” said Grandmother Lane in her old voice. She inclined her head and gave a hard dry wooden smile, but her eyes were warm. Ronnie saw in her a strange stillness, as of something waiting, quietly, but which if it moved might well unhinge the earth. He looked again and saw a tall dried old woman, a light black dress falling about her, with strange tranquil and yet terribly shrewd eyes, waiting for him to come in. Her grey-white hair was tied behind her head. “You are one of the Three Elders.” he said wonderingly. “Arheled spoke of you. He said he might have to call upon you, for the first time since the first calling.” Grandmother Lane seemed to have become as still as if she really was made of wood. “So I do have a part to play.” she murmered. “That is a comfort, even if I am never asked to play it. Come in, Ronnie Wendy. Welcome to the house of Lane.” “How much have you told her?” Ronnie said to Travel as he came in. “Pretty much everything we know.” “Good; I won’t have to explain things.” Grandmother Lane took the cookies out of the oven and a marvellous smell filled the old house. “Travel tells me you like cookies.” “Ah, well,” laughed Ronnie, “who doesn’t?” The old woman smiled as she pried them from the wax paper and set them on a plate. She gave them two smaller plates, with green designs of cottages and pine forests in amazing detail on the white. “Then take as many as you like.” Ronnie, taking her literally, filled his plate. Travel took about three. “You’re going to eat all that?” she marvelled. “He’s a man, isn’t he?” Grandmother Lane said tartly. “Men can eat their weight in cookies and still come back for more.” “And I thought four was pigging out.” “Ah girls are such picky eaters.” “Well, they make you fat.” “I see no fat on him.” the old woman smiled. “Any more than there was on Grandfather Lane. Would you like milk, or do you have allergies like Travel does?” “I do not! I can drink a whole glass without dropping dead!” “Indeed, and get a yeast infection halfway through the second.” Grandmother retorted. “I could drink milk three times a day when I was your age. I still can. Why suddenly everyone and their uncle is coming down with milk allergies is beyond my understanding.” “I can take a little milk myself, but too much does do things to my throat.” Ronnie agreed. “I’ll take fruit juice, if you have any.” “I keep some soda in stock for Travel and Rufus.” and Grandmother Lane got down two porcelain mugs with the same kind of detailed blue and green etchings, filled them with grape soda and set them before them. When Travel had finished her cookies and Ronnie was half done with his, Grandmother Lane fixed her eyes on them. “So. Travel tells me you spoke with Brooke.” Ronnie described how he had found her. Grandmother Lane nodded, unsurprised. “Although it is strange that the Streamgirl would be walking the Roads and not a Lane, but then Wayfinder knows what he is about.” “You think her coma is '' Arheled’s'' doing?!” exclaimed Ronnie. “If all I have been hearing about Wayfinder is true, then yes, this does sound like him. Without her body, she cannot be killed in those strange wayplaces. Perhaps there is something she has to do there, something he either cannot or will not do himself.” “You don’t seem very surprised by all this.” “Neither do you,” Grandmother Lane said dryly, “and you have been mixed up in this far less years than I. I have hunted Wayfinder since I was a girl. And these pathways through other places are not entirely undiscovered.” “Lanes found them?” “Wayham himself was the first to mention them.” she said. '' “Here ye Place did walk, and I could y it See, but it was Hide from my eyes how far it goeth. It was over the wood and yet before my feet, but I dare not step thereon.” '' “Any others?” “There is a rhyme that Tobias Lane, my great-great-grandfather, left in his papers.” she answered. “Let me see. How did it go? “''Roads that were made in the land of the shade '' ''Shadow everglooming on the mooning of the glade '' ''Never do you dare to follow them through here '' ''For if you do you may it rue '' ''And ever wear the wooden shoe, '' ''Until your pear grows out a haw, '' ''And fruit is eaten in the raw, '' ''Odnewnodnevnedelehra.” '' A dreadful light leaped up in Ronnie’s eyes. “That is the word that opens the Gates of the Morning.” “So Travel tells me,” murmered Grandmother Lane. “I always felt it meant more than it said, but my husband like my father thought it nonsense. Now, you came to look at family photos?” “Forest said the Tree’s face resembled Travel’s.” Grandmother Lane went off to her desk and returned in a moment with an old leather album. “I have daguerreotypes, and portraits going back as far as Wayham’s son,” she said, “but of Wayham himself there is only one sketch. In profile, drawn by a shipmaster’s daughter accompanying her father on one of the early New World expeditions. No settlers took root in these parts until the 1620s, except for Wayham Lane. She was out sketching in the woods while her father traded with the Indians, and Wayham came out of the trees, looking like a tree himself with his deerskin clothes and wild hair. She sketched him as he stood, staring at her, and then she asked his name. He said, ‘Wayham Lane’ and slipped back into the trees like a shy rabbit.” “Did she ever see him again?” Travel wondered. Grandmother Lane gave a thin smile. “When they arrived back in the Netherlands she was with child, and her father attempted to hang one of the crewmen who had been friendly with her; but she said the man was innocent, and the father was named Wayham Lane. She stuck to the story. Her son took ship when he grew old enough and went into the forests to seek his father. The Indians told him of a strange white man living in the mountains by the haunted hill, and he came after long searching to the cabin of Wayham; but it was deserted, and looked unused for years. Wayham’s book stood on the mantel. The last entry in it was dated 1613. No one ever saw Wayham later than that.” Ronnie looked down at the ancient, faded paper in its’ protective laminating, the thin brown ink of the sketch, and the powerful rugged face it showed. Line by line, he studied it. “Interesting.” he muttered. She showed him portraits of other Lanes all down the years. In one degree or another they all resembled Wayham. It was quite fascinating. Back to Arheled